Social Justice as Injustice
1. “In fact, since the program of social justice inevitably involves claims for government provision of goods, paid for through the efforts of others, the term actually refers to an intention to use force to acquire one's desires. Not to earn desirable goods by rational thought and action, production and voluntary exchange, but to go in there and forcibly take goods from those who can supply them!” (B. O’Neill, “The Injustice of Social Justice” http://mises.org/daily/5099).
2. “Social or distributive justice deities force and coerces peaceful people, robbing them of their choice-making ability. True justice expresses concern and respect for an individual’s non- aggressive free choice. Social justice exudes false sympathy and prattles about equality, all the while exhibiting the clenched fist of force. True justice accords with the ultimate morality of choice. What, then, is ‘our fair share’? It is precisely that which we create and acquire in non- aggressive manner during our tenure on this earth. It is nothing more and it is nothing less” (Ridgway K. Foley Jr., “Our Fair Share” The Freeman, March 1984)http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-fair-share/
3. “Altruism in this strict sense is the basis for the various concepts of “social justice” that are used to defend government programs for redistributing wealth. Those programs represent the compulsory sacrifice of people taxed to support them. They represent the use of individuals as collective resources, to be used as means to the ends of others” (D. Kelley, “Ayn Rand and Capitalism: The Moral Revolution” in The Morality of Capitalism, 2011, p. 71).
4. “True justice neither needs nor permits the adjective “social” before it. Justice necessarily applies in a social context (the need for justice never arises for a lone individual on a desert island.) While justice applies differently in different circumstances, the principle means the same fundamental thing in each: individuals getting what they deserve. Occupiers calling for ‘social justice’ are calling for the use of force to interfere with the voluntary associations of business owners, customers, and employees—for example, through wage and price controls, nullification of loan contracts (e.g., mortgage and education), increased taxes on the so-called one percent, and other forced wealth transfers" (A. Armstrong, “Contra Occupiers, Profits Embody Justice,” The Objective Standard Dec. 2, 2011, http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/author/aarmstrong/, accessed Dec. 4, 2011).
5. “Unfortunately, many Occupy Wall Street protesters call for ‘social justice,’ which is a euphemism for more looting” (A. Armstrong, “Contra Occupiers, Profits Embody Justice,” The Objective Standard Dec. 2, 2011, http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/author/aarmstrong/, accessed Dec. 4, 2011).
6. “With ‘social justice’ as the ILO’s [The United Nations International Labor Organization] guiding principle, it follows that Article III of the Declaration states that the ILO will work to ‘ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all.’ But exactly what is a ‘just’ share of the world’s wealth? Who will decide this amount? How will it be obtained? One can assume that it will be left up to the state. As Roeselaers bluntly puts it, ‘This is primarily a political rather than economic question’ . . . Zimbabwe provides a painful illustration of ‘social justice’ at work. By expropriating the property of the landed farmers, President Robert Mugabe effectively destroyed the nation’s ability to feed itself. Starvation and poverty have been the explicit outcome of government distribution. Capital in the hands of the productive is beneficial for both the capital owners and society at large. Those who create wealth should be left free to do so—prosperity for the masses depends on it. Government’s role in alleviating poverty is to augment capital creation, something it can only do by supporting property rights and establishing a uniform rule of law." (J. Blanchette, “Education is the Effect, not the Cause, of Affluence,” The Freeman July/August 2004, http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/education-is-the-effect-not-the-cause-of-affluence/, accessed Nov. 29, 2011).
7. “It was a transformation made strikingly clear in the four-day rule-by-mob. It showed in the confident thuggery of the looters, and even more so in the fact that a number of regular job-holding Britons took part in the action. Others opined in emails that it was all a matter of social justice—after all, big department stores that had been ransacked had plenty of insurance. Nowhere was the transformation clearer than in the helplessness of citizens largely left to the mercy of marauders in the first stages of the riots. There would be little help initially from the police—outmanned, taken by surprise, uncertain of what they were allowed to do and not do in this situation. What violation of human rights regulations might they be charged with?" (D. Rabinowitz, “Mob Violence and the ‘Looting Bankers’ Defense,” The Wall Street Journal Aug 17, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576510814144419874.html, accessed Dec. 12, 2011).
8. “A politically dangerous spiral begins at the point where economic policy is based on the assumption that the many can be well off only if the few are not better off; or if the income or the wealth of a polity is understood as a fixed quantity, so that ‘social justice’ can be practiced only through the sacrifice of the minority, in order that the rest should ‘feel better’ about things.” (H. Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior, 1969, p. 369).
9. “In this view, certain men, such as the needy, become ‘deserving’ in a new, invalid definition of the term. They ‘deserve’ to receive values simply because they lack and wish for them—as a recompense for no action, as a payment for no achievement, in exchange for nothing. In this approach, the ‘deserved’ is turned into a caprice; the concept is thus vitiated and the virtue of justice swept aside. It is replaced by what is called ‘social justice,’ which policy consists in expropriating the creators in order to reward the noncreators" (L. Peikoff,(1993-12-01), Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 287, Kindle Edition.)
10. “In the end, everyone is stealing from everyone else, and it’s not clear who really benefits from the smaller economic pie. It is not surprising that we get crisscrossing and offsetting transfer policies that are riddled with iniquities and inefficiencies. It’s just what you expect from the political process when it embarks on the pursuit for social justice where people have necessarily conflicting interests” (E. Browning, Stealing From Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit, 2008, p. 183).
11. “Robin Hood acts unjustly (by taking what he has no right to take) in order to bring about social justice.” (R. Scruton, sample sentence in Oxford English Dictionary for the “social justice”).
12. “That 19 year old college kid had her 2006 BMW stolen before it ever got the new plates. Who stole it? Robin Hood? That's social justice” (Urban Dictionary.com sample sentence for “social justice”).
13. “[Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick] forced the philosophical advocates of egalitarian social justice onto the defensive, by showing how the state cannot be justified as the distributor of wealth without violating the rights of the individual.” (sample sentence in Oxford English Dictionary for the “social justice”).
14. “Thus, the inane propositions of those who glibly justify restraints on liberty by the phrase “social justice” fall mortally wounded in the conceptual fray on the sword of true justice defined in the terms of human respect for another’s freedom” (R. Foley, “A Second Face of Justice” http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/a-second-face-of-justice/_)
15. “It will be apparent by now that the demands of “social justice” are incompatible with those of individual justice; to the extent that the first demand is met, the second must be sacrificed. If the government takes money out of Peter’s wallet to put it in Paul’s, it may have achieved greater equality, but not greater justice. It is impossible for individuals to receive a just wage on a free market and then be forced to part with a portion of it, for then they receive less than a just wage” (J. Hospers, The Freeman, (Jan. 1985) “Justice Versus Social Justice” http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/justice-versus-social-justice/).
16. “The final irony is that the ideals of the champions of ‘social justice’ are not even achieved when they are put fully into practice. Because people will not—and cannot—produce indefinitely without compensation, the final result of massive transfer payments is equality of zero—universal destitution. That, after all, is how the excesses of the late Roman welfare state gave way to the destitution of the Dark Ages It has happened many times in history, and it could happen again if the proponents of ‘social justice’—that is, enforced collectivism—push their demands so far as to cancel out the requirements of individual justice"(J. Hospers, “Justice versus social justice,” The Freeman, Jan. 1985, http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/justice-versus-social-justice/, accessed Nov. 29, 2011).
17. “On this, the experience of Mrs. Kirchner's Argentina is instructive. It abandoned free markets, ostensibly in the interest of social justice. The predictable result has been greater injustice, more poverty, and increasing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the political class and its friends” (Mary Anastasia O’Grady, “Argentina’s Warning to America,” Oct 17, 2011, Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204002304576630973369218208.html?KEYWORDS=social+justice).
18. “The central error of present-day Marxists, apart from their fundamental lack of charity toward their fellow creatures, is their contempt to set up by any and every means a planned Absolute of social justice. We do well to strive after justice. Yet in the imperfect world we can never hope to reach more than an approximation to it; and if our presumption carries us further, all we are likely to achieve is a greater injustice” (R. N. Carew Hunt, “The Ethics of Marxism,” in Michael Curtis, Ed. Marxism: The Inner Dialogues (2nd Ed) 1997, google ebook p.90).
19. “If no one actually commits an injustice, then no moral principle can reconcile justice to individuals with social justice after the fact. Only in centrally directed social systems, such as the military, can social justice even make sense, as there are no rules of just conduct in settings where individuals are instructed what to do” (B. Steil, Money, Markets, and Sovereignty, 2009, (Kindle Locations 682-685).
20. “The fact that many people may, with the best of moral intentions, believe in the importance of certain claims to global social justice does not mean that there exist rules that can effectuate them without producing more global conflict rather than less” (B. Steil, Money, Markets, and Sovereignty, 2009, (Kindle Location 694).
21. “Morally and ethically motivated citizens can condone a philosophy of so-called social justice only if they fail to see its terrible injustice” (L. Read, Who’s Listening, 1973, p. 97).
22. “My contention is that justice and so-called social justice are opposites and that to promote the latter is to retard the former” (L. Read, Who’s Listening, 1973, p. 93).
23. “So-called social justice is man's greatest injustice to man, antisocial in every respect; not the cement of society, but the lust for power and privilege and the seed of man's corruption and downfall” (L. Read, Who’s Listening, 1973, p. 97).
24. “It’s my honor to be guest blogging this week. I’ll be discussing the topic of grassroots lobbying and some of the findings from my related research. However, I’m not a lawyer, just a social scientist, so please temper your expectations accordingly (since we all know that when used as a modifier, ‘social’ means ‘not’; e.g., social justice, social security, social worker, etc.)" (J. Milyo, “Tocqueville Meets the Speech Police,” June 21, 2010, http://volokh.com/2010/06/21/tocqueville-meets-the-speech-police/, accessed Dec. 10, 2011).
25. "‘Social justice,’ in short, seems to be simply a way of providing a respectable cloak for the basic principle of injustice” (S. Shenoy, “Selective Justice,” The Freeman, 1965, http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/selective-justice#axzz2RRPkBP4B).
26. “But observe the inconsistency here: if Jews are subjected to different rules from those applying to the non-Jews, this is called anti-Semitism; if blacks are subjected to different rules from the whites, this is called racism; but if the groups against whom differential rules are to apply are designated as ‘the rich,’ ‘capitalists,’ ‘landlords,’ and the like—then it is no longer discrimination: it is social justice!” (S. Shenoy, “Selective Justice,” The Freeman, 1965, http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/selective-justice#axzz2RRPkBP4B).
27. “It is clear that "social-justice teaching" does not mean justice as most Americans understand the term. Those who use the term make clear that it means the United States is an unjust and oppressive society and the solution is to "spread the wealth around.” (P. Schlafly, “Teaching ‘Social Justice’ in Schools,” Human Events, Nov. 4, 2008).
28. “These four qualities we have here outlined are necessary features of any genuine conception of justice, but they are not features of ‘social justice.’ We are not, therefore, merely arguing that ordinary justice and ‘social justice’ are different, but that they are in conflict with one another, and that of the two only ordinary justice is genuine justice. ‘Social justice’ is not justice at all” (T. P. Burke, The Concept of Justice: Is Social Justice Just?, 2011, p. 28).
29. “Postmodern cultural liberalism reflects the concept that oppressed, ethnic racial, ethnic, and gender groups in our unjust and racist society must take power from their oppressors – white males and our system of governance – in order to obtain social justice. In this concept, preferences must be granted to redress oppressed group grievances due to past victimization. Group rights replace individual rights. One manifestation of such preferences is the idea that racial, ethnic, and gender groups should proportionally hold positions at all levels of elected and appointed government. Group power and political coercion are the means to grant such preferences and achieve social justice, at the expense of individual liberty" (W. Young, Centering America: Resurrecting the Local Progressive Ideal, 2002, p. 173).
30. “Some object, however, that until something is produced, there are no benefits to distribute, and the very fact of production might create rights in the thing produced which would be violated by any distribution that does not have the consent of the producer. If that is so, then the whole picture of social justice as a form of distribution might involve a covert affirmation of a kind of agency in an area where there is no agency, and a right of control where there is no such right” (R. Scruton, Dictionary of Political Thought, 1991, p. 433).
31. “It was the great accomplishment of classical rights theory to connect “subject right” (it’s her right to X) and “objective right” (it is right to Y), meaning that the way in which justice is achieved is mutual respect for rights. That achievement is in peril from theorists who sever the relationship, such that rights must be systematically overridden in order to achieve ‘social justice,’ a process that – to the extent that it is realized – weakens or even eliminates the rule of law, rights, justice, and freedom" (T. Palmer, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice, 2009, p. 3).
32. "But the rest of us need to face the fact that the Rule of Law and the Search for Social Justice cannot exist side-by-side because social justice requires that those who possess more of anything have it taken away from them. The Rule of Law will not permit that. It exists to guarantee conditions in which more people can have more liberty, more rights, more possessions. Prophets of social justice – communists, whether by that or any other name – focus on who should have less. Because they have nothing to give, they can only take away. First they take away opportunity. Next, they take away possessions. In the end, they take away life itself" (B. Vazsonyi, America 30 Years War, Who is Winning, 2000, p. 59)
33. "A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half. When you see a four-year-old bossing a two-year-old, you are seeing the fundamental problem of the human race — and the reason so many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity" (T. Sowell, “Random Thoughts,” Jewish World Review Nov. 28, 2003, http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell112803.asp, accessed Nov. 8, 2011).
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